Chiyomusubi

The Free Bacchus Story

Chiyomusubi has brewed in Sakaiminato, in Tottori, since 1865, and the Okasora family still runs it; the name wishes for happiness bound together for a thousand generations. In 1945 the Gyokuei Maru explosion destroyed the brewery, and rebuilding began that same year. Okasora Sō, the sixth generation, became president in 2025. Its flagship sakes are made from Goriki, a Tottori sake rice that had vanished by about 1955 and was brought back in 1989.

A sake label often gives a polishing ratio, the share of each rice grain left after milling. The outer layers carry protein and fat that make a heavier sake, so polishing them away gives the lighter, more fragrant styles; ginjo keeps 60 per cent or less, daiginjo 50 or less. Chiyomusubi works at both ends. Its Junmai Daiginjo Yamada Nishiki 15 keeps just 15 per cent. Four of its five organic junmai keep 88 per cent, which the brewery calls unusual for sake, to hold on to the flavour of the rice. Junmai means rice, koji and water only, with no distilled alcohol added.

The organic rice comes from five farms under direct contract, and each organic sake is named after its farm: Maeda Farm by the Ibo River in Tatsuno and Watanabe Farm below Mount Takamikura in Kakogawa, both in Hyogo, Hiyori Farm in Anan, Tokushima, Ōshima Farm in Chikusei, Ibaraki, and Eco Rice Niigata in Nagaoka, organic for more than thirty years. In the brewing season the brewery fetches its water every day from Daitō, in Shimane.

The certifying body is Tottori Prefecture itself, which registered the brewery under Organic JAS in January 2024, certificate No. B23-0024, for processed foods including alcoholic drinks. It covers the organic bottles, the five farm-named sakes and the Junmai Ginjo Organic NATURE, not the Goriki range or the rest of the house. The rice is bought in; no farm of the brewery’s own is on the register.